New sculpture goes on show

A SCULPTURE by Angel Of The North artist Antony Gormley has gone on public display for the first time in Manchester. Filter, a life-sized male figure made of steel rings welded together, suspended in mid-air, was unveiled at Manchester Art Gallery.

A SCULPTURE by Angel Of The North artist Antony Gormley has gone on public display for the first time in Manchester.

Filter, a life-sized male figure made of steel rings welded together, suspended in mid-air, was unveiled at Manchester Art Gallery.

Holes in the rings allow people to see inside the body, which contains a mass of steel balls representing a "heart".

Two abseilers were brought in to install the sculpture, which hangs by steel cables over a staircase in the gallery's glass-roofed extension.

The work, dating from 2002, was bought with an £80,000 grant from independent art charity The Art Fund.

Gormley is best known for the Angel, the huge metal-girder statue which overlooks the A1 in Gateshead, and the Another Place installation of statues on Crosby Beach in Merseyside.

The Filter figure is based on the artist's own body.

Orbit

"The work hangs in space as if in orbit, open to light and the elements. It is a meditation on the relationship between the core of the body and space at large," he said.

"It suggests that, while movement, freedom of choice and the exercising of will is one way in which life expresses itself, there is another axis: the relationship between emotion and spatial experience."

From a distance, the sculpture seems to be floating unsupported in mid-air, and Gormley, 58, said he was delighted with the location.

"It was important that it was light and clear, and that's exactly what I've got, but the added advantage is that you can see it from below, from the same level and from above," he said.

"There are not very many spaces where that kind of all-round visibility is offered.

"I'm hugely proud and pleased to have the work in the collection and in a space that isn't devoted entirely to other artworks.

"It's in a bridging space - people are on the move as they pass by it.

"It's a body that's in the space in very different terms to those of us having to walk up and down the stairs."

The artist said the sculpture was an attempt to re-examine the body and represent it not in action or as part of a narrative, but simply existing.

Interaction

"We think of the body as an interaction through which will is exercised but we know that 90% of the body's activities are not conscious," he said.

"Often we think it's the mind that constructs the experience of the body, and I'm trying to focus on the feeling of being."

The purchase was also funded by the Livingstone and Bloom Charitable Trusts, and Gormley said this kind of philanthropic support was essential for art to thrive.

David Barrie, director of the Art Fund, said he was delighted that the work had been bought for the public without any public money being spent.

"We put £80,000 in and the balance of the funding was provided by trusts, so the whole thing was funded privately," he said.

"The Art Fund has 80,000 members and we have, in effect, given £1 for each of them, showing that, cumulatively, even the smallest contributions can be enormously effective."

Virginia Tandy, the gallery's director, said she hoped similar funding packages could be arranged to acquire more works in the future.